The Art of Falling Apart
by Royal-Sovereign
Summary: An intense tale starring Stan as the sensitive, literature-loving baseball player and Kenny as the trainwreck-mess Stan has to save -- but at what cost to Kyle? Advance warnings for graphic sex, suicide attempts, nervous breakdowns and emotional violence.
1. One: Bedsitter

Some quick notes:

Most of the content to this particular chapter was drawn from personal experience...I'll leave it at that.

The imagery that I've re-created here was inspired by the Soft Cell song "Bedsitter" (hence the chapter's title), as well as The Postal Service's "We Will Become Silhouettes", particularly the intro to that particular track. "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega gets a rather obvious shout-out as well.

The title of the overarching story itself, "The Art of Falling Apart" is taken from a later Soft Cell album, and the twisting of the phrase _Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret_ (the name of their first album, and one of my personal faves) is another Soft Cell reference. And finally, to state the absolutely painfully obvious, the opening quote is from what is perhaps Soft Cell's greatest song, "Fun City".

For the record, I have resisted using either the lyrics or the title of "Tainted Love". (Lulz.)

Although the story is classed as StanKenny, StanKyle features prominently, and indeed much of the emotional brain-breakage on Stan's part hinges on his (former) relationship with the latter.

Stan is a "sensitive jock" (gay football players I have personally termed "skullfucks" -- but that's quite another tale altogether) whose floridly explosive reactions to the corrosive drama herein are explained by his fondness (really not all that out of character, if one thinks about it) for classical English Lit.

Hopefully the story doesn't suck too bad...at any rate, leave me some feedback and tell me what y'all think!

* * *

**Episode I**  
_Bedsitter_  
**  
_I tried to make friends,  
Tried to make amends –  
I've sunk so low  
It's hard to climb out._**

_Soft Cell, "Fun City"_

It was all I could say.

_Dammit_.

I should've been saying more, saying something to ease myself and steady myself but I couldn't, too hopped up on pain and pressure and diseased innuendo, all the happy memories exploding, spraying bloody infected pus all over the room – and I don't have a fucking mop.

I would've told myself not to fall in love with an image, were not the image – _him and me at school two days ago – _ so beautiful and real…but there I was staring at the computer screen – _two days ago is a lost golden age_ – because I'm secretly a dark Jockfag who writes out his feelings in a journal all flowery and nice, like right now…football players aren't supposed to _have_ feelings, but hey guess what? We do – and right then, my feelings were failing me completely.

The blinking light on the "D" drive was chirping in my head, over and over, **he doesn't love you/he didn't love you/he doesn't love you/he didn't – **

No – he did, he did, once…

His eyes – the shade of his eyes are blue, brilliant sparkling blue like transparent crystals, whereas mine…are darkened blue, the color of sapphires and desire, they meet his – can it be said that they really do? – and together, _we_ are the blue of skies untainted, of heavens that radiate in the Sun's warm glow...

_Where the Hell do I get this shit? What the Hell is wrong with me – ?_

His expression is always so adorable, a puppydog I just wanted to clutch and hold, whisper-yell every pointless, worthless word of obsessive passion and squeeze it all into less than a second of a packed and exploding Eternity, the stars stopping to point and gape, black spirals of Infinity unraveling and wrapping across my mouth –

_ – okay, I'm going way overboard here, but I – I can't not think about it – _

– because I can't feel anyone's lips, anyone's kiss, only the hard metal brace of something like a muzzle, as would befit a keep-me-in-a-cage freak-of-nature like me, to silence me, not to call him with a bark or a howl, when I can't do anything other than manifest primal, lonely, insane, absolutely blasphemous urges…

Fuck.

No use.

The only thing I _wanted_ to do was touch him, feel him – and the only thing I _could_ do was pass out on the bedroom floor.

_"I love you, Stanley Marsh. Thank you – for picking me, I don't deserve you…me, a fucking loser like me, not Kyle…me…"_

_"Uh, Stan? It's me, listen – can we talk for a second? I really don't think this working…"_

The sun came up the next day…

Today was a new day – but today the Sun did not seem to care _what day it was_, if an Empire had fallen during the night or a civilization had reached it zenith while everyone else was sleeping…really, it was, after all, the same thing, different _only in the details_.

The shower poured over me, but it couldn't wash off that rank scent of defeat, or get the taste out of my mouth of the – of the vomit of the night before.

What a stupid thing I did, myself tells myself, but I'm not listening to me – I don't trust myself, not with my body, not with my soul, _never again, lest we forget, Sweet Jesus_.

Getting out of the bathroom, the spring morning comes through the window, with the pale lemon-dust of the sunlight's glow…there was supposed to be life out there, coming out and rebirthing the world over, casting radiance from one continent to the next in perfect harmony with the sauntering waves in the oceans…

Enough poetry. It's all bullshit in the end.

Off the charger comes the phone – and _hey, presto!_ people care.

**You have – seven – teen – new messages. To play these messages, press – **

No.

Fuck no.

I don't want to listen to them. They aren't _him_ – I just know they aren't – and they don't a damn thing on him. Unless it was…unless it was his voice, I didn't wanna hear another Goddam sound.

I collapsed to my bed and I feel my face convulse. At first I tried to fight it...I sat up, and stared stupidly over at my desk where the papers were all over it, pens and pencils and open notebooks and even a candle burnt down to look all spooky – hey, whattya know, Cartman was right for once, Jockfag likes to –

_"Hyah! Damn Jockfag sucks Jewcock!"_

– likes to be gay and read Shakespeare, Jockfag likes to be gay and write poetry and then go play quarterback for the school, Jockfag sucks Jewcock and swallows Jewcock, _loves_ to swallow Jewcock, promises Jewcock he'll love him forever and they'll move to Canada and get married, and then dumps him like yesterday's dinner.

Hot fucking damn, I'm a worthless human being.

That was the last straw – I couldn't fight it and then I gave up, and then the dam burst, and _oh Jesus Christ_ it was awful – I couldn't stop —I let it all out, ripping it out with Kyle's invisible hands and Kenny's invisible claws. By not saying – thinking – their names, I was just making it seem like it wasn't all that bad…but it was…

I started to hyperventilate – could this get any worse?

Actually, yes.

I passed out.

Blacked out.

Turns out guzzling pills doesn't just fuck up the night, it fucks up the day. Everytime I dryheaved last night I thought of Kyle crying on the phone and Kenny standing in my doorway – the parting glance – turning and walking away.

The stomach acid burnt my tongue the way Kenny – Kyle – the way their tongues caressed it, once upon a time – up from my throat where the pills went down, because I wanted to show my body what my mind's been having, those healthy doses of the _need to hurt_.

After all these years, I never once thought or believed it could ever come to this. But somewhere forgotten in the shades of my self-worth, I knew that if it ever did, it would be my fault – me, destroying me, destroying everything and everyone else.

I wake up and the sun is still shining, and Sparky is curled up on the foot of my bed, he must've wandered in while I was sleeping…he must've known his best friend was in trouble.

It's Sunday morning and somewhere in my head is "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega, I want some coffee and a newspaper and a nice relaxing chair, embroidered slippers and a bathrobe to match – make it all so banally normal, all so welcoming back into the routine and wheels and cogs of life...

It's Sunday morning and the all-night non-stop erotic catatonic cabaret extravaganza of what turned out to be perhaps the most absolutely pathetic attempt at suicide in history has gone to bed.

And there I am – awake.

This is where it should it end – you know, camera pans out to me crying myself to sleep again – but no, I'm never that lucky and nothing is ever that fitting.

Instead, the phone buzzes.

**Kenny McCormick**.

I let the voicemail get it – I start crying again, harder than before, when the phone buzzes again – the son of a bitch left me a voicemail, _and it had taken him a solid three minutes to do so._

What choice did I have? I picked up the phone – I pressed down _one_ and waited.

**You have – eight – teen – new messages. To play – **

I press _one_ again, and hold the phone up to my ear… 


	2. Two: A Boy Could Get Lost

Some quick notes:

Now, the previous chapter was a true profusion of holy-crap-trainwreck emotion, something that this chapter...well, really just isn't. Although it's still pretty intense in the Emotions Department, the feelings are now coming across with a decidely more subtle, more quiet way.

Also unlike the previous chapter, this one does not have an especially strong "musical" theme to it – that is, it's not as heavy on the usage of certain pieces of music and the works of certain artists...although Soft Cell does here again make an appearance, as the title of the chapter is a paraphrasal of an obscure song of their's, _"A Man Could Get Lost"_.

Ultimately, I think the reason I keep writing these fics is to look back and reflect on some of my relationships – in particular a gay one, but also several regular friendships – that have either failed or faded into oblivion.

Who knows? Maybe a Yaoi fanfic can be deeper than usually thought...

20th February: UPDATE! Revisions in wording and typo-correcting.

25th February: HUMONGOUS UPDATE!

Okay...so I basically tore this story a new one and then rebuilt it from scratch.

The original MS wasn't _bad_ by any means...but then again it wasn't amazingly good. I took everything and gutted it – like everything I edit – and thus, I think, turned it into something far superior.

By far the most significant addition I've made to this edit is the inclusion of my favourite verses from William Blake's _"The Auguries of Innocence"_, which highlights Stan's great interest (in my universe) for classical British literature and poetry. The impromptu "analysis" that Stan uses also drives the point home.

But despite the additions, a lot of the edit centered around _subtraction_, as whole (useless) passages were shortened or removed altogether.

Overall, the improvement is, in my view, significant – and I'm very proud of it.

* * *

**Episode II**_  
A Boy Could Get Lost_

**Of all the things we've said –  
Times that worked, before today…**

_Orchestral Manœuvres In the Dark, "Of All the Things We've Made"_

When I was tripping on pills last night, I had some sort of dream-delirium that didn't really crystallize and become coherent enough to piece together – to remember at all – until _after_ I had woken up.

The star of this nightmare was, I guess pretty naturally, Mr. Kenny McCormick.

I saw him, saw him crouched below me – in front of me, crying and begging for help from me – before – before his hands sprouted fur and became paws, his teeth became sharp and pointed like a wild beast's...

He had become a monster on all-fours, half-human and half-canine or something even stranger – but the worst part was, he was still begging me to help him, but he couldn't make out words, and so he would bark – howl – cry…

I had wanted to do the same thing to him, to bark and howl and cry at him, because I was desperate and felt so helpless – _like an animal_, just as he had become, physically.

I came away from this dream – piecing it together – with two things I couldn't shake, that I wanted to get out of my head, but couldn't.

The first was the way he screamed my name – _Stan! Stan, please!_ – before his voice degenerated into those monstrous noises that would give more sensitive people nightmares.

But far worse was that _look_ in his eyes – transcendently feral, perfectly and horrifyingly inhuman...looking _into me_, begging and pleading with me for help...he needed me right then, more than he ever needed another human being in his life...

...but I loathed and despised him so much, I was almost glad to see him like that – helpless, needing _me_, when I was the one he had so uncouthly betrayed, so abruptly left – _well wait just a sec, maybe it's like karma…_

Switch back to reality, or what passed for it – the soul-shattering look of Kenny's eyes in my dream were, of course, quite absent as he stood before me that afternoon...just just the same languid stare he always had, the gem-like orbs of glacial chaos that left whole trails of destruction wherever they swung.

It turns out that it's actually kinda hard to sadistically hate someone when they're only three feet away.

"So why'd you call me, Kenny?"

The eighteenth voicemail, the one I had been so sure was going to be the final blow, the final step over the edge into darkness – a Blake verse popped in my head: **and some are born to endless night...** – had consisted of fifteen seconds of a muffled request to see me that afternoon, and two solid minutes of silence.

Either the dumbass had lost his nerve and given up – or forgot to press the Goddam "End" button. That was it: in some sick way, I was a little disappointed.

His eyes…those lazy, melancholic eyes of his I still thought, even now, were the most beautiful things in the world – his eyes did not change at all as he shrugged in response. He looked vaguely upset, I could tell, even if he wasn't saying anything...growing up with somebody will give you that ability.

He had come out of the backdoor of his house wearing nothing but a pair of disgustingly worn-looking orange pajama's, his mop-like blonde hair crowning his head with a kind of triumphant flourish – the vulnerable look, the cigarette hanging from his thin lips, _all of him_ – it was the paradigm of everything I ever thought was hot and gorgeous.

"Kenny," I repeated – hot and gorgeous or not, the kid was wearing dangerously thin on my generous patience. "Dude, c'mon."

He took another puff from his cigarette, and I watched – very much in spite of myself – as his scrawny, sinewy-muscled body took in the smoke before he expelled it, like a pro, out from his nose. Tossing away the cig, he looked at me for a moment with a kind of frown, glanced to the ground beneath him…and then back to me.

"Yeah," he began confidently enough. "I – I uh…" As his voice trailed off his eyes suddenly shut, squinting hard. Swallowing back something heavy in his throat which I knew all too well the true nature of, his eyes flew open, and he refocused them – brilliant diamond dust plucked from a Winter's sky – directly on me.

But what was the only thing he could muster after such a dramatic pause? "Um…"

I love awkward silences. Really – there's just absolutely nothing better than having someone who has something really important to say just _stops talking_.

I realized in those few seconds of this welfare-rat's convenient inability to verbally communicate just what a stupefyingly retarded decision I had made listening to that Goddam voicemail – not to mention trekking out here, this deserted wasteland of poverty in which Kenny's filthy, barely-standing cabin-like house was the only significant feature.

**Every night and every morn, some to misery are born...**

"You said you wanted to talk, dude."

That was the simplest and politest way I could put things. I wasn't going to bring up the fact that his dumping me had pushed me to the brink – oh fuck that, _way_ over the "brink" – of Suicide, had directly caused me to hurt myself in ways I had never previously considered doing…crying so hard I was almost hoarse…

Nope – not yet, anyway. Of course, if he wasn't going to hurry the Hell up and come out with whatever the fuck he wanted to say, I was fully prepared to let him know all about it – all _that_, and a whole lot more.

"Y-Yeah…I – uh, I know…"

Once more with that lost-puppy look he unintentionally wears when he's sad or worried – there he was, being heart-rendingly adorable at the precise point I wanted to stomp his throat.

Even so, nothing he could've done at that point would have changed the way I felt. This was it. I was done crying, I was done feeling betrayed.Now, I was just pissed.

"Stan, listen…" His eyes darted away to the stoop again. "I – I dunno what happened yesterday, I was jest – "

When he looked back up at me, as I knew he would, he saw that my eyebrows were raised straight up in anticipation. Whatever he was about to tell he _owed_ me, and he knew it.

But my heart had, thanks to that sorry bastard, already begun to change. The shaky twang of his voice in person, just like his late mother's, rich and exotic from the Deep South, was melting away my resentment.

Many people – well no, more like everyone else but me – thought he sounded grotesquely hickish…but to me, I could hear something raw endearingly humble and sweetly earnest, and it was just one of the scores of things I loved about him, loved about being around him...

...but I was still pissed.

"Dammit Kenny, just tell me already! The fuck are you just standin there for?!"

There is, if you haven't already found it, a fairly large disparity between how I think, how I write, and how I actually talk.

I saw Kenny start to shake his head…slowly at first, then picking up rapid speed before he dove straight for me – pulling me into a needy hug.

I was caught totally unprepared – my body stiffened in surprise, and for a passing second my initial reaction was to shove him away. But…no, I couldn't do that to him – I was the bigger man here, and I wasn't going to do to him, what he did to me.

Any idea of pushing him back would have immediately died anyway when I heard, and then felt, his breathing become labored and sporadic, before he began to whimper in pathetic little cries…it was just like an animal, a puppy lost on the street, pitifully looking for his mother…

I moved my arms to hug him tight, instinctually, to cover and protect him. Kenny had a natural defence against the cold, he said, but I could feel him shivering...I was there to cuddle him and keep him warm...

This was why I loved him. This was why I had to let Kyle go.

**Every morn and every night, some are born to sweet delight...**

I love William Blake, but him and his damn poem were getting to be a nuisance.

Letting a minute or so pass like this, I took a quick inventory in my head, sarcastically recapping the events of the past day or so:

Kyle and me had one last night, then me and Kenny began in earnest, followed by _him and me_ breaking up in turn.

It was a cycle of depravity and emotional wreckage: Kyle cried and cut himself, blaming me – I cried and guzzled pills, blaming Kenny – and God knows whatever the Hell Kenny did, but _he_ had no one to blame but _himself_.

At a brief length he withdrew from me, stepping back to put some space between us, or maybe just to steady himself from worsening his sudden emotional rupture. He coughed to clear his throat, shaking his head – like a dog, because clearly I couldn't draw _enough_ similes to him being a lost puppy – like he was literally trying to "shakeout" something vexing his thoughts.

When he stopped to look at me directly again – I saw it – the _eyes_, those damn eyes of his, reddened and wet from crying, but so very scared…frightened, wounded, _a little lost puppy who's lost its mommy_.

**Every night and every morn...**

On any other day but today, Kenny McCormick would appear, on the exterior, to be a passably normal high school kid, maybe one that could use a good scrubbing and in real need of a new wardrobe …but here, now, looking into his eyes and he looking into mine, I could see something far, far darker – and far more beautiful.

"Kenny…" I said softly, the only thing I could think to say.

When this started, I had ten megatons of explosive resolve to maim this kid's emotions so badly he'd wish he would have never born...and now it was all gone, disappearing in a cloud of loving pity.

"Look," Kenny answered, "I – I got all like, freaked out n' stuff, y'know Kyle was all cryin n' all that shit, n' I – I jest – "

I noted that he had indeed steadied himself to a large degree, the tears replaced with sniffles, plunging headlong into that embarrassing word-salad people use when they're attempting on-the-spot damage control after something mortifying happens.

In other words, I was letting him babble – and babble he did:

"I mean I was like – I – I didn't know what ta do, y'know, everythin happened so quick and so sudden, you got rid o' Kyle n' then you called me, but I – I got so scared – n' then when – "

Enough was enough: "Stop," I ordered.

He was obviously taken offguard, but he did as he was told, shooting his eyes away to the ground in what I recognized to be – here we go again – that look of infinite shame in a puppy's eye when you tell him he's been bad.

"One thing at a time, Kenny – okay?"

"S-sorry, I – "

"Don't say you're sorry, dude."

"Okay, sorry – I mean – wait, fuck – "

I reached out my hand to graze his cheek, holding his chin gently. His eyes quivered and he swallowed hard – I felt my heart want to burst, knowing I was so close to him and that, now, he was mine again...sort of.

Blake was right: there are people born into any number of situations from which their lives are destined never to deviate from – and yet still others brought into this world in a malleable form, **endless night...**worse than misery but better than sweetness at the same time, either a great black pit or a beautiful starlit sky...lives that changed without warning.

Kenny and I were each others' "endless night". Each one wanted to kill themselves over the other, and now we were back to falling in love. We were each other's abyss, each other's night sky.

Impressive, huh? Damn right – Jockfag likes his books. And really, that's the reason I love poetry so much – the meaning's there for anyone, just look another way and you'll see it.

Now it was official: the kid I wanted to kill myself over, I had now fallen for...again.

"Kenny...it's okay." I said it in a whisper – to be honest, I thought if I said it any louder I'd be tearing up too.

I let my hand fall back into my pocket – Kenny opened his mouth again, as if to start another reply, but it died at his lips.

"Let's just go slow for a sec, okay?"

Kenny nodded vigorously. "Y-Yeah, I – I'm pretty confused m'self rite now, heh!"

He added a bashful chuckle at the end, trying to make it seem like his quiet emotional outburst was a mere isolated occurrence, and not (as it so obviously was) a tell-tale symptom of a far more serious syndrome.

I sniffed and nodded a little smile to him – he and I had pretty much come to terms now, but he still had his side to speak for. That, more than anything else, must have been the reason I had gone against my (very) better judgment and came over here to the house of my – well just what the fuck _is he_ now?! – um, my "friend".

I just wanted him to say something, to give me closure...

...and I got something else.

**Every night and every morn,  
Some to misery are born –  
Every morn and every night,  
Some are born to sweet delight – **

"Ye wanna – um, ye wanna come inside?" Kenny offered.

I smiled. "Yeah...I would."

**Some are born to sweet delight –  
And some are born to _endless night..._**

Fuck.

Here we go again.


	3. Three: Chips On My Shoulder

Some quick notes: 

Well, here we are – the third installment in the ongoing _The Art of Falling Apart_, my _South Park_ fanfic which finally seems to have taken on a mind of its own.

Some people might be disappointed – or perhaps delight, I really dunno – to find that this is a chapter which puts the action in the background to recap the situation in its current (and none too pleasant) state...here, we find out just what went on to bring about Stan's suicide attempt, and why he wants Kenny more than he does Kyle.

Essentially, the whole thing is, start to finish, a psychological analysis of Stan Marsh, cold and clinical (I use that phrase in the text, by the way) as he goes through several stages of crisis in retrospectively considering the decision(s) he's made.

It's not particularly flattering, nor is it meant to be "entertaining" in the traditional sense – to be honest, it's stuff like this (what B.D. Wong does so perfectly on _Law & Order: SVU_) that really fascinates me and really grabs my attention. Another good example of this is F. Scott Fitzgerald's _Tender Is the Night_, one of my favourite books...a "moment" from which I've transmuted here.

Because I've read over a great of this type of material (psychological drama) before, actually getting around to writing it was pretty simple.

And finally, keeping up with the trend of using Soft Cell songs as titles – I've done it again, this time with Track 7 on _Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret_, " Chips On My Shoulder"...it's a phrase that applies pretty neatly to Stan in his current situation, but the song itself is a sort of "anti-protest" song, ripping the activists of various causes that don't practice what they preach a ripe new one.

Obviously, only the title of the song (as I said) has much to do with the content of the chapter – which, by the way, I sincerely hope you all enjoy!

* * *

**  
Episode III**  
_Chips On My Shoulder_

**You'll forget what you meant  
When you read what you said,  
And yeah we knew you were tired, but then –  
Where are your friends tonight?**

_LCD Soundsystem, "All My Friends"_

Fifteen minutes ago was the tearful reunion, twelve minutes ago was the makeup kiss, and now – _now_ there was snuggling.

...snuggling, guilt, and sexual alienation – not to mention the line of invisible elephants doing the can-can around the room which Kenny and I were purposely trying to ignore.

Lying there with Kenny's slumbering form held tight in my protecting arms – turns out he hadn't gotten any sleep last night either – all of our problems should have just melted away...

...but this was not a Hellogoodbye song, and the notion that he and I could just _start over_ by ourselves from the middle of such a massive hemorrhaging of confidence, trust, and loyalty was as pie-in-the-sky as, say, Cartman losing those two-hundred pounds.

It turns out that _amor vincit omnia_ is a crock of shit, because love _can't_ conquer everything – as much I wanted it to, as much as I just wanted to take Kenny to live with me in seclusion from the maddening crowds of the high school, as much as I wanted to silence the world and its critics, to be with Kenny and to fucking Hell with everything else…

Some work had to be done, to make a drastic understatement – and furthermore, to make a crude analogy, you can't grow new flesh and fully heal without cutting away the rotten part first. It might not be the most tasteful way of drawing conclusions about my life, but by and large it's pretty damn fitting.

For one thing, Kenny's breakdown – the implosion of our relationship – was entirely my fault.

The effect the neck-breaking speed at which events took place, the wholesale obliteration of "how life used to be", had caught Kenny unawares, as it had everyone else…but, with the stable environment that he relied on disappearing, it had hit him the hardest. This had played the biggest role in why he left me.

He knew I was the one that took all the friendly normalcy in our lives – _Sunday morning with coffee and a newspaper_, the silly fantasy I was thinking of that morning – and shot it all to Hell.

It was a twist of epically sick irony: Kenny's breakdown was entirely _my_ fault – and, not being able to handle what I had started, he bailed, until he realized how much he really needed me…and came back.

The bloodbath into which had been thrown our entire social circle, all of our friends and associates – this massacre of a safe, sane, secure world of at least a few reliable absolutes...

...this was all my fault.

But as every blissful second passed that I could press Kenny close to me and hold him tightly, to let him know I would never, ever leave him...I found it very hard to give a damn. All that mattered was that Kenny and I had made peace, that we were together. If he couldn't rely on anyone else…he could rely on me.

Who the Hell cared if my clique of friends wouldn't be "cohesive" anymore? _This shit shoulda all gone down years ago!_

The old rules, the _ancién régime_ that had been established when we were small, had been allowed to establish its reign and perpetuate without question for so long…was destined to die… to be overthrown, if what I was doing was truly like a "revolution". I was, by this line of haywire-logic, just doing everyone a big favor by speeding things up.

Right. Um, no.

Let me take a moment to recap just who I am: Stanley Marsh, age 17 – lead pitcher for the school baseball team, Wilde and Blake devotee, one of the most popular kids at school. To this may be added: _delusional sociopath with a messianic complex_.

Just what the Hell was I trying to prove? Something – to myself?

More rationale for ditching my one-time fiancé for a poor-as-dirt junkie?

More reasons to keep on this path I had chosen seemingly on a whim?

A stronger way to justify social suicide?

Kenny was snoozing soundly on my chest – he told me the sound of my heart beating was comforting to him. Why couldn't that be the only reason I needed for leaving everything behind?

But maybe...

No, wait – maybe I was right all along – after all, we had grown up to be so much more different than how we were as kids.

In Kenny's case, all those years of dying (and resurrecting – no one ever questioned this, and it was really for the better the subject has since been left alone) and his mother's mysterious death had left Kenny in a state that transcended simple emotional instability...it could be safely said that, without irony, and when considered in conjunction with his drug use, the boy could be declared legally insane.

But, as I said before, to an outside observer, Kenny McCormick was just a quiet, sensitive teenager. Because his notorious pattern of "dying" and "coming back" had abruptly stopped when we entered Fifth Grade, there was nothing now to distinguish him from the rest of us…if his abject poverty wasn't taken into account.

There was no real hint from his usual behavior that Kenny was constantly if not perpetually in a state that teetered dangerously on being actually off-his-rocker crazy.

What had kept him grounded – kept him sane, without exaggerating – was us: me, Kyle, Butters. Cartman had finally split from us a few years into junior high; his presence was not missed.

Kenny latched onto us even more firmly after Eighth Grade..."the year it hit the fan", Butters called it, and with good reason: Kyle and I came out of the closet together as a couple – Kenny's mom died suddenly of what a few people, Kyle's mother especially, suspected of being _non-accidental_ poisoning – and Clyde and Cartman, forming a bizarre sort of "partnership", started doing and selling drugs...some of which ended up with (or rather _in_) Kenny, who starting shooting to get over the paranoid neuroses brought on by his mother's death and, as I said, his the trauma of the death-resurrection cycle he had been trapped in for years.

But the fun didn't end there: that same year, shortly after Token moved away to Montana, Wendy and I had one last sick-joke attempt at a romance right at the start of the school year – around Butters's birthday, September 11th, easy to remember. That ended when Kyle and I – _we did it together, we've done everything together_ – and she consequently refused to speak to me for three solid years. In fact, nly a few months ago did she bring up the slim possibility of us being friends again.

And who could blame her? Who could blame her friends, her mom, or anyone else that took her side? I deserved every damn bit of negative press I got.

It was a recurring theme with me – I date, I love, I trash.

That's the way it went with Wendy – and, though it took a lot longer and ended in far more violence and heartbreak than Wendy and I could ever dream of...

...it happened with Kyle.

Before I actually sit down and explain it to someone, I come off the way I feel like – a rapacious jackass.

Certainly, I imagined that afternoon with Kenny – burying my face into his shoulder in an attempt to ward off the reality that surrounded us like poisonous miasma – that's exactly what Kyle was broadcasting to anyone who would listen, all over Park County and Colorado and (who the Hell knows?) the world at large.

I can see it now: the front page of _The Denver Post_, big banner letters,**STANLEY MARSH CONFIRMED TO BE RAPACIOUS JACKASS**.

There was no way of knowing if it was true, but honestly…it was exactly what I'd do, if it'd happened to me.

I was so worried about Kyle, no matter what he said about me...cuddling Kenny couldn't dispel the images of Kyle slashing his wrists, Kyle crying until he threw up, Kyle staring at the wall in a brain-sick catatonia.

There were seventeen other "new" voicemails and God-knows-how-many texts on my phone I hadn't listened to read yet – they were probably still coming in, but I wouldn't know, I had my phone turned off because I thought, maybe, if I put it out of sight, I could put it out of mind...yeah, that was working out _really_ well.

It was pretty much guaranteed that the vast majority of these messages would be from Kyle – I could feel the pinpricks all over my heart as I thought of him sobbing on the phone, demanding answers and explanations I couldn't give...his MySpace bulletins (I hadn't seen them, like the texts – and like the texts, I still knew they were there) spewing hate and bitterness, telling everyone we knew, everyone we hung out with, that I was no better than Cartman in the way I had ended up treating him...

Everything reminded me of him. Everywhere I turned, everything I saw, I felt vibrating back to me associations, most of them vague but some of them distressingly lucid and clear, that had _something_ to do with Kyle.

For a moment – the worst moment of the whole time I spent with Kenny that day, the point that made my very heart sick – I felt that old urge to text Kyle and tell him about it, ask him what he thought of it, just like I'd always do…

Sick to my stomach, that's what it made me – wanting to vomit, vomit again like I did last night, purge myself _of_ myself...a masochistically Emo self-prescribed self-flagellation out of my stomach and onto the floor.

Here it came...the thing I dreaded would happen, but that I had arrogantly assured myself at the time wouldn't actually happen – no, I was too strong for it – but yet there it was – the persistent pull in my head _back to Kyle_.

Guilt, empathy, and the vapor-like ghost of the dream I had lived with my – _well, no, I guess he's not my soulmate after all_ – "old friend" was building up a sudden resolve to back to Kyle and finally end this bombshell story-of-the-year travesty, and attempt to rebuild what little reputation I'd have left.

"No more!" I would think with a pompous voice intoning in my head. "A return – to _normalcy!_ Sunday mornings with coffee and a newspaper – "

No.

No – no.

Kenny stirred underneath me, whimpering softly as he breathed out my name.

My eyes, which had been fixed to the ramshackle wooden wall of Kenny's bedroom as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world, instantly shot down to his drowsy, ice-crystal eyes, slowly opening halfway – a fleeting moment that made him look as stainless as an angel…his sleepy smile told me everything I needed to know, every reason I ever had to believe, as to why I was staying...why _Kenny_ was my boyfriend.

"I love you," he said barely above a whisper.

I scratched behind his ears gently, trying not to tear up. "I love you too, Kenny..."

He and I gazed into each other's eyes for the longest time...my doubts were gone, the guilt wasn't.

Oh, what am I so worried about? After all, the deathblows I had to the cohesive forces that held our circle of friends together – were predestined. They would drive us all apart after graduation – the Great Diaspora into college – or perhaps a bit a later, at any rate they _would_ come...once again, I concluded, I had done nothing to anyone that wasn't coming anyhow.

Wait – ha, look, I'm avoiding the topic again – this isn't about anyone else, _it's about Kyle_. And Kyle never deserved this…never.

Rationalize it with all the reeking bullshits reasons I could come up with...the fact remained that, not only had I ruined my clique of friends by doing something that would inevitably polarize them all – pro-Kyle, pro-Stan, and most of them would be pro-Kyle – I had also ruined the life of the boy I had spent the past sixteen years almost continuously in the company of.

Towards the end – which was what, two days ago? – I could feel the magic, the youthful spark of exhilarated excitement which had made life with him so rewarding, those first few years of contented euphoria and joy…was gone. Kyle wanted to be "sensible" about things and "settle down" at the age of seven-fucking-teen.

Is that why I dumped him? Is that my excuse?

No – fuck, _no_.

It was like I was auditioning the various thoughts in my head for the all-important role of the line of logic I used to dump Kyle and go to Kenny, and it was looking like the season premiere of _American Idol_.

None of this…none of this had to happen – what the Hell is wrong with me? We could have all still been friends – Butters, Bebe, Craig, Tweak, even Wendy – well into college. We didn't have to split up…fucking Hell, wasn't what Facebook was for?

And as for me and Kyle's "domestic partnership" – just what the Hell was wrong with _that?_ Sure, it might have been a little premature to start thinking "marriage" at seventeen, but we believed we were soulmates, that we were destined to have this for ourselves…Kyle's reasoning was: why wait, when we could do it now?  
Why had I resented it so? For fuck's sake, if I got tired of a monogamous relationship so suddenly and so bitterly, just what the Hell did I ever expect for _every other_ Goddam relationship I'd ever have?!

What did I expect – what did I _want_ – with Kenny?

Of course he sucked my cock the other night – wow, guess I forgot that detail – but then again he'd do it for anyone…he's so easy, a nympho-whore who didn't know any better, he was so damn desperate for someone, _anyone_, to love him, he'd latch onto them and never let go. Someone looks at him favorably and he'll swallow their cum and say he'll love them forever.

_Is that what I am?_

What am I to him?

The afternoon sun was flowing through Kenny's bedroom window, glinting off his hair and turning it into shades of glimmering gold…I studied him, laying with me in my arms…he was so beautiful, he was so pure and yet so hideously tainted.

I would ponder him on certain rainy days when Kyle was away, wondering how he was doing – I never thought I'd actually get to be with him one day. In some of my private moments I would fantasize about him…about saving him, which I knew I could, _I knew_ someone had to help him before he plunged into an abyss that we all knew – Cartman's tasteless jokes about him being a gutter-junkie – would inevitably happen.

Fallen angel, lost puppy – best friend, playmate, good buddy – lover, boyfriend.

"Stan…?"

I blinked – Kenny had called out my name just as my clouded thoughts were beginning to slowly kill me.

"Yeah?" I whispered back.

He stroked my cheek and kissed me on the lips. "What's wrong? You look like sumthin's made you sad…"

Oh, God – he must have been watching my face, seeing it grow grave and fraught with the dread of an impending emotional doom. It wouldn't have taken a genius telepath to tell I was a few steps away from imploding.

"Nothing baby," I lied tenderly.

He kissed me again. "Thank you, Stan…for choosing me."

I smiled back at him. What was I supposed to say to that, after everything I had thought of, everything that I _had_ to think about, to confront and wonder about?

"Promise me sumthin…"

I nuzzled him. "What is it?"

"You'll never leave. You'll always be here with me."

It was then I knew for a fact, he truly loved me. He could, I guess, hook up with anyone…but he told me a day ago he had crushed on me before as well. This wasn't random – I wasn't another dick for him to suck – he was taking this just as seriously as I was.

"I promise…"


End file.
